Welcome traveller who journeys across the sea of blog and finds himself upon my shores. Welcome to my landscape.
I cannot even begin to describe how seeing Grief by Mike Leigh at the National Theatre made me feel yesterday afternoon. I was profoundly moved and it penetrated my heart on a very personal level. Perhaps all that is for another time.
Today I want to write about an event I was witness to a couple of night ago. A murder. An act of cannibalism.
It was 2am and I was wired on coffee. I was drugging myself up with caffeine in order to stay awake to complete my dissertation. Not being one to regularly partake in espresso stimulation these days, I was feeling a little bit ‘woohoo’, a little bit extra extra, my heart was pumping that shit through my body. If I’d not been alone I would have talked the arse of any one near me like I was on a gram of speed, chomping at the bit. But I was alone and in my very awake state witnessed a deadly act of nature.
I came across two spiders in my bathroom having a boxing match. They were bouncing and swinging about, striking out at each other with what appeared to be a fighting manner. But it became apparent that this was not in fact a boxing match, it was in fact a hostage situation. The small, thin bodied spindly legged one had captured a bigger, fatter and more hairy creature of her kind. She had caught his one half of his legs and bound them together with spider silk. He was striking out with his able side but in vein; this spider vixen was weaving and there was nothing he could do about it. As he struggled she worked away at slowly binding him with her silk. I watched with horror and awe as slowly his remaining legs were winched up, enclosing him in on himself. His body jutted forward and pulsated trying to escape, but it was too late. She was at work. She moved around him with pure confidence and focus, weaving and weaving. Her front legs at work like two knitting needles at work on a beloved jumper. Weave, weave, weave. At times she would stop and check to see the quality of her work. Making sure it was strong enough, that it would hold. There were no dropped stitches, this spider was on a mission to have her tea and she wasn’t letting it go.
It was fascinating, horrific, disturbing and brutal. I admired her.
The next morning I discovered the poor fella wrapped up tightly in a cocoon of silk and my female vixen sitting close to him, very still. I discovered later from a friend, to whom I had relayed this sight, that she was draining him of his fluid for her own being. That is what spiders operate by, internal fluid and she was drinking him dry. Sure enough when I returned home, there she was, sitting back in her corner, twice the size, her body now bloated and swollen, the empty shell of the captured spider now lying useless and limp in my soap dish. I ceremoniously flushed him down the toilet.
Chilling? Yes. It was a chilling example of the natural world and I feel honoured to have witnessed it. I believe it is good for me.
But it has thrown up some questions in side of me. How unnatural is it when as human being we fight and turn to violence? How have we, as a species, repressed this over time? I am not condoning violence, I am a lover not a fighter but if we are repressing this natural animal instinct, where does all that aggression go? Do we simply internalise it and what impact does this repressed animal instinct have on our inner emotional life? What are the consequences of civilisation?
Watching the play Grief, which explored a family who repressed emotion and subsequently destroyed their relationships because of this inability to communicate, I wonder if we are not destroying ourselves as a race by repressing our animal selves. The notion of civilisation interests me and I am not all together convinced that it is wholly good for us. Everything has it’s consequence.
